photoshop tutorial:
Energy explosion

A tutorial about how to make an energy explosion

Create the base of the explosion

Open Photoshop and start a new document of 400 by 400 px, 72ppi.
Press D to get the default forground and background colors.
Activate the Gradient Tool. Choose in the option bar the first gradient (black to white) and choose as type/style Radial Gradient and tick on the option Reverse. Make the gradient as shown below.

Create the explosion

Go to Filter > Sketch > Graphic pen and fill in these values:
Then go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and fill in these values:
Press Crtl-J (mac: Cmd-J) to duplicate the backgroundlayer and change the Blending Mode into Difference. This creates a entirely black image.
Press V to activate the Move Tool. Make shure that the top layer is active and move this layer two pixels to the left (press 2 times the left arrow on the keybord).
Merge the layers by pressing Crtl-E (mac: Cmd-E).
Go to Image > Adjustments > Levels and move the whitepunt from the curve as shown below.

Enhance the explosion by adding Sun, Lens flare.

Make a new layer and press Shift-Backspace. The window fill pops up. Choose after Contents for 50% gray.
Go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare and fill in the following values.
Go to Image > Adjustments > Equalize.
After this go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and fill in the following values.
Change the blending mode to Screen.

Finishing off the explosion.

Take off a few pixels on the right with the Crop Tool.
Activate the backgroundlayer and choose Filter > Blur > Motion Blur.
Go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and fill in the following values.
Activate the top layer and make a new adjustmentlayer Hue/Saturation. Use the following values. Beware that you tick on the option Colorize before you change the values:
and this is the result.